


How Jacob Black Made It Through The Worst Day Of His Life

by aadarshinah



Series: The Guide Series [5]
Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, Teen Pregnancy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-13
Updated: 2011-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 14:23:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aadarshinah/pseuds/aadarshinah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leah takes a trip, but how does Jake cope with her being gone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I am the Alpha

**Author's Note:**

> set during "Modern Warfare," during chapters Victor through X-Ray

"In the light of the sun, is there anyone? Oh it has begun. Oh dear, you look so lost,  
eyes are red and tears are shed, this world you must've crossed. You said 'You don't know me,  
you don't even care. You don't know me, you don't wear my chains' ..."

Augustana "Boston"

* * *

I hate Thursdays. I've never quite understood them. I mean, there's a part of them that's all "Oooh, look at me! I'm Thursday! I'm almost Friday! Aren't I so hip?" which works out well on three-day weekends, but there's also the annoying part that says, "Ha! Ha ha ha! I am Thursday! Let the tedium of Wednesday spill over! Make the clocks run backwards! You will never get to tomorrow! Mah ha ha ha!"

This particular Thursday was especially evil, 'cause we were having a test on Beowulf, which I personally would have found more exciting if Beowulf actually turned into a wolf, the thing was in actual English, and I'd had time to read more than the first three pages before giving up, disgusted, and going on patrol with Embry. Add that to the fact that I had to find some time to do my Math homework (and I couldn't just copy off Seth's like I do for Chem, 'cause apparently they don't want just the answers, whatever that means) before Ms. Oles actually makes good on her threats to throw me in detention for not doing it. Last time Mr. Mora had detention duty and he "looked away" when I snuck out the window, but I doubt I'll be so lucky this time.

I bet Ephraim Black never had this trouble when the Cullens were here the first time around. About stupid English tests that make up one fourth of twenty-five percent of our grade and detention, I mean. Personally, I think it's highly unfair. As Alpha of a pack of soon-to-be ten werewolves, I should get an honorary diploma or something, or, at the very least, not be penalized for, oh, having to protect Forks and La Push from an incoming wave of really old, really unfriendly, really ugly Italians. I'd've dropped out ages ago if Leah hadn't insisted I graduate. Don't know why; it's not like any job we'll ever be able to hold with our wolf schedules would actually a diploma. Or a better grasp of the English language than, "Do you want fries with that?"

But what Leah wants, Leah gets, one way or another, and since I'm quite fond of my dangly bits, I go.

I should've known the day would go badly when Leah's phone rang and, groaning, she quickly pressed talk. "Why?" she asked. "That's all I want to know, why. Of all the annoying songs in the world, with access to a million ringtones at the touch of a button, did you put that song as a ringtone? I'm not even going to ask how you manage to keep on changing them, but why the hell the Titanic song?"

Kate, who'd called, replied loud enough for me to hear that it was called "My Heart Will Go On" and that it was the song of a beautiful love story before Leah (my wife; it gave me all sorts of thrills to think of her that way, some of them the more possessive ones she didn't like, but most of them ones that made me think all too girlishly that we'd be together until we were both old and wrinkled, like our parents would've been if it weren't for Mom's car crash or Harry's heart attack. I don't know why I like this idea so much. But I'd do near anything to spend the rest my life with Leah Clearwater, however long that might end up being) interrupted, "If this means you want me to watch Titanic with you, I refuse."

I yawned and adjusted my hold on Leah's hip, only catching the end protestation, "...tenth anniversary collector's edition," and trying to fall back asleep. I'd been having a very nice dream and was looking to get back to it. It'd involved lots and lots of food.

"I'm not watching Titanic with you at six in the- fine, five-fifty-eight in the morning. I'm not- what? The Matrix? Hmm... will there be popcorn? Well even you can't burn popcorn too badly, there's a button on the microwave for it- Well, ask Esme then." Leah rolled her eyes at me but, still talking to Kate, pulled herself off the ground and started dressing. "This is what you vampires do? You live for a thousand years and you want to sit at home and watch movies? I mean- What do you mean Siobhan and Maggie haven't seen The Matrix before? That's just... Do they live in a hole or something? I- Really? Now you're just being hurtful."

I watched as Leah went to the low trunk at the back of the lean-to and pull out a dress like all the rest she owned, strapless and falling inches above her knees, and dressed. They guy in me couldn't help but help but notice every time she did that long ago she'd given up on underwear of any sort, and the wonderful view of her long – luscious, luxurious, lovely, whatever other alterations I can make – legs this gave me. Turning, she saw me watching and stuck her tongue out at me before dropping a hand back into the trunk and throwing clothes at me.

"I'll be there in a little bit, Kate. I've got to wake the munchkins up and see they've actually done their home- Just because they didn't have schools in your time doesn't mean they're not important. Emmett only says that because he's been through high school like five- okay seven times. Whatever. We can watch Keanu Reeves and his god complex in action after- Hanuman? Never heard- They have him playing Rama now too? Buddha in Little Buddha, a messiah in the Matrices, and now a Hindu god? When-? Not out yet? Why do you even know so much about Keanu Reeves anyway? Did you-?" The phone clattered down in disgust. Turning to me, "I think Kate's going to tell me about all the movie stars she's fucked now."

That was a scary thought. "Munchkins are we now?"

"Not you, le duh," she said, kissing me gently before I took her head in my hands and tried to deepen it. I'm eighteen, Leah's drop dead gorgeous in the best way imaginable, and her take-charge, don't-give-a-shit attitude is quite sexy, if I do say so myself. Which I do. Which, all things considered, means that I love her, want her around me all the fucking time, and makes it hard to concentrate on things like school or patrolling. According to the guys, I'm only slightly less than annoying about it than Quil is over Claire, even then only by virtue that Leah isn't three.

She pulled away, reluctantly, and said fairly softly, "Not with the conga-line going on inside me. I feel like I'm about to keel over and die in some convenient corner."

"That's not good," I told her, concerned. "I still say you're doing too much, especially since the twins seem to be growing at double the normal rate. Lay back down, go back to sleep; I'll wake the pups up."

Leah snorted. "That one isn't going to work on me again. I know you've an English test today."

I honestly hadn't even been thinking about that, but, as I've said, what Leah wants, Leah gets, and hormonal Leah is almost worse about it. As I dressed, I heard her walking through the sleeping bodies on the other side of our curtain, going through the normal routine of trying to wake sleeping wolves. And after this she'd go to the manor and have to deal with twenty-odd leeches by herself until we came back. And then she'd run in the afternoon with the pups, and the cycle'd continue again. She'd not rest unless her body absolutely demanded it, and trying to force her into it would only make her more stubborn about not. "Maybe you should just let sleeping werewolves lie."

"They can sleep all they want," she told me, "when they're done with school. Now stop being a bad example and help me."

I rolled my eyes, and went to help my wife.


	2. and the Omega

"...Essential and appealed, carry all your thoughts across an open field. When flowers gaze at you  
they're not the only ones who cry when they see you. You said, 'You don't know me, you don't even care.  
You don't know me, you don't wear my chains'..."

Augustana "Boston"

* * *

I entered the manor after school, looking for Leah. The Cullen's living room was mostly empty, considering all the leeches in the residence at the moment. The two Irish women – I don't know their names; I need a crib sheet for all of them now, but I know they're the Irish because the one that looks about Judith's age has red hair and their leader has the slight hint of Irish Coffee mixed into her sugary-sweet smell – were staring at the TV intently, upon which the Titanic was beginning to sink. The nomad that'd come with Rose and Emmett – George or Gregory or something like that – was sitting close to Kate, pouring over a rather thick book in a way that made me distinctly uncomfortable. Not the way they were sitting, but the way they were looking at the book and highlighting parts of it. Either they'd decided to join Emmett in Seminary, or something else bad was going to happen.

Still, I was surprised to find Leah wasn't here. If she wasn't with Kate, with whom she'd struck up the oddest friendship, she was with Nessie. But from the sound of things this morning, Kate had dragged her into an all-day movie marathon, and as it was still today and there were still movies playing, it was odd that Leah wasn't here. Even if it was the Titanic they were onto now, presumably having finished the various incarnations of The Matrix earlier.

Still, I jumped over the arm of the couch and bounced into the seat next to Kate, causing her highlighter to jerk a little. "They feed you caffeine at lunch again, Yisra'el?"

I groaned, mostly because Kate thought it was amusing to call me "Yisra'el" because my name was Jacob and, since was as as old as dirt and had spent much of her un-life whoring around the religious courts of medieval Europe, knew the Bible and most other religious texts all too well. She thought it was funny, and insisted on calling Sam "Esau" whenever she'd reason to speak of him, much in the way she called Leah "Kiwi." It was terribly annoying, but none of us had thought of anything vile enough to do to her in return, so we dealt with it, largely by ignoring these comments. I liked the idea Seth had about using Emmett's pudding gun...

"Er, no. Where's Lee?"

"She started feeling bad during the fight scene at the Merovingian's and went upstairs. And Bella said to tell you that Loch Nesswanted to see her father, so Kiwi took her to see him and her mom was there and so she called to say she's spending the night."

It took me a moment to process her convoluted sentence, which I was sure Kate did on purpose, and before I could ask any more questions, say why Leah'd been dragged into babysitting again when Bella never seemed to be doing anything (which was true. I'd never actually discovered what Bella did with her days after she became a vampire, especially when she wasn't with her daughter) and Charlie was her father, Kate spoke up again.

"How d'you like the name Caleb?"

"What?"

The nomad beside her, speaking to me for perhaps the first time, explained. "Katrina and I have been going through this... book all day. She's been highlighting names she likes." The vampire seemed more amused then anything else, like another leech choosing names for a werewolf's twins was a mere oddity. Then again, considering some of the other things their fellow leeches got up to, I suppose it is.

"I particularly like the name Caleb because it's spelled almost the same as keleb in Hebrew and means 'dog' or 'canine'. I've tried looking for names that mean 'wolf', but you can't use Adolph because of the whole World War Two stigma and Fenrisulfr Black just sounds stupid and Romulus and Remus are just too obvious... So how do you like the name Caleb?"

"I'm more interested in why you're picking out names for my children."

"Well," she said, flipping a page and highlighting the name Cyrus, "Leah's not exactly gotten around to it yet, and, with the way things've been going, she'll probably pop before she ever chooses any names... so someone has to be prepared. For when she gets back."

"From Charlie's?" Why did we need names by tomorrow morning? Better yet, why did she like the name "Cyrus"?

"That's where Bella says she is."

"And so you volunteered?" Knowing Kate, if she had her way, they'd probably be named Ichabod and Methuselah, or something else crazy. Something was seriously wrong with the leech, but it might just have been because she didn't seem to be trying very hard to get Garrett to have sex with her, like she and her sister usually did with the un-mated male leeches. I'd already had the distinct displeasure to be on patrol and find Tanya and the nomad with the fur hat, Randy or Rudolph or something, doing the dirty, scaring the entire pack for life. Not to say I wasn't pleased about not having to deal with Kate and Garrett Frenching or worse in front of me, but I thought it odd. Hell, I found Kate in general odd.

"Naturally. It's my job as BFF and maid-of-honour – and since we all know the moment Alice gets back from Amazonas she'll start planing a proper wedding for you and Kiwi. And since, primarily, we don't know if she'll get back before the Volturi arrive and the weather channel is warning record snows, and, secondly, anything I might work on for the wedding Alice will change, baby-names and china patterns are my only source of bridal party entertainment. And Garrett got tired of looking at china patterns with me."

Personally, I don't think it was china patterns Garrett had been looking at any more than he was paying much attention to the names Kate picked out, which made the fact she was sitting there looking at baby names all the stranger. "I see," I said, even though I didn't. Vampires are fucked up. I guess that's all there is to it.

I got up to leave, figuring if Lee wasn't around I'd go bother someone else for a while, when Kate asked even more strangely, "Is your cell phone charged?"

Like Leah, the Cullens had given me a phone too to use in case of emergencies. However, as Leah seemed to be the go-to wolf for the pack, I'd never really used it. I kept it charged, though. The Volturi threat was looming ever closer; we had to be ready to fight at any moment, and all the rest the Alpha stuff. "Yeah."

"Keep it on you today, okay?"

I blinked at her. What else would I do with it? Use it as a doorstop? As I didn't have a door... "Of course."

She flipped the page again, ignoring me. Not that I cared. I'd heard entirely too much of her sexual encounters to be able to look at her straight. I mean, I know technically she was only like seventeen or something, but she was so old my reaction to this knowledge was much like what they would be if one of my grandparents were still around and were telling me about their exploits. Gross.

I went out the back door and wandered through the camps of various leeches before reaching the woods and continuing on, on two feet, until I reached the river. I don't know why, really, only that I wanted time to think, and it's hard to think about human problems when you're running patrol as a wolf. Besides, Quil could take care and tof the pups. They might've only been children, but they took the wolf-thing seriously.

I snorted. Children? Matty was only four years younger than me. And look at me, Alpha wolf and married and with kids on the way. Ridiculous. And yet it was true, and rather then be disappointed with me, Dad had all but cheering me on, mostly because his wheelchair prevented the more acrobatic cheers. All in all, it was strange, and I hadn't gotten use to the idea at all that I'd be a father. That I was a father.

And a vampire was naming my children.

I shook my head at that sat on a fallen tree by the river's edge. There was a thin, skin-like layer of ice on the water, and I supposed it must be cold out if the snow threat was that bad, but I couldn't tell. Maybe...

"I wouldn't go swimming if I were you. You might not be able to get frostbite, but a werewolf with a cold is not something we want to be dealing with when the Volturi come."

I looked around for the voice – Edward's, I'd know his mind-rapping tones anywhere – and then, when I couldn't see him on either side of the river, I looked up, surprised to find him about halfway up a giant pine, sitting there as if readying for a nap. If he could sleep, that was. Instead, he just seemed to be sitting there with his eyes closed, listening. "I'm surprised. The bat thing not working out for you?" Believe it or not, for all Edward bugged the crap out of me, I think we "bonded" or something when Bella was pregnant with Nessie. I mean, why you both didn't want the same person to die, it's kinda hard to continue hating the other. I mean, I didn't like him that much, especially 'cause he couldn't keep his head out of everyone else's, but he was mostly bearable. Nowhere near as funny as Emmett, or fun to annoy as Rose or Alice, but he was okay. Just so long as he stayed out of my head.

"It is hard for me to be in the house," he said out of nowhere as I lay on the ground to get a better look at him. There was a thin dusting of snow from yesterday, but the teachers had all be worried for the three feet or something ridiculous we were supposed to get tonight, so bad we might even have to have a snow day, which hadn't happened since, like, second grade. That'd be cool, if it wasn't for the fact that that much snow meant the Volturi would not be far behind – a day or two at the absolute most, if Alice's vision hadn't changed. According to Leah, who actually was kept informed by the leeches on these sorts of things, Alice and Jasper and one of the Amazonians were still in Brazil, though damned if she knew why. It was kinda annoying never to be told any of this sort of thing myself, but as Leah didn't have stupid school to worry about, I guess she had the time to be filled in on annoying personal details about the vamps, "with so many thoughts from such old minds. It is hard to sort through them and find the current. I did not think any of the pack would be out here."

"Wasn't intentional. Just bored." I got up to go.

"You can stay if you wish. I hate to say it, mutt, but you're thoughts are saner then some of our guests."

The are blood-sucking vampires. Of course my thoughts are saner. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be willingly hanging around Edward Cullen of all people. Next thing you know, Sam'll show up with cookies and we'll have a tea party.

"Those memories are... particularly unpleasant, but the memories of a thousand years are no light matters. To keep them straight, Kate talks about the past near constantly, as if writing the story of her life, while Tanya does her best to forget and live in the moment, or the future, because her past is too long and Dark for her to willingly travel... The others are all like this to some degree, or are like Alistair and have begun to loose sight of reality..."

And I care why?

"There is a reason why vampires rarely survive for more than a few hundred years without joining a coven, and even there find it hard to stay in their present times... Most start to forget, and make mistakes that get them killed because of it, whether by superstitious humans or the Volturi, to keep the rest of us safe. Alistair is near two thousand years old and knows little of the world outside his making, except that he must hide from humans excepting to feed... In another few centuries he'll probably be the end of himself..."

And again I care because? I really didn't care about vampire politics or psychology or physiology or whatever this was. Volturi want to kill us, we stop them from doing so – that was all I really needed to know. I didn't want to think of the human-drinkers as anything other then murderers, though some I knew were trying, temporarily, the vegetarian diet and the Amazonians had always been something of opportunistic omnivores...

"We do not easily get along, groups of us, though the Volturi are the exception. They rule by fear and power... but they are the oldest of us too, excepting perhaps the Romanians... and the old ones always make mistakes."

Ah, I get it now. "You think that if we can get them to make one of these 'mistakes' you're talking about, we can win." But how do you get three thousand year old vampires to make mistakes?

"I do not know... since time immeasurable, they have led our world, kept it safe. Before them were the Romanians – there were four then, but only the younger two remain – who ruled from castles and were constantly at war with themselves and others and the humans they controlled like a shepherd controls sheep. They brought peace to our kind... I saw it in their minds when I went to Italy." I tried not to remember those awful days surrounding Bella's cliff dive. But I did anyway, and with it words from the book we'd had to read over the winter break – The Virgin Suicides – or, more specifically, the movie of it we'd watched in class the Monday after we came back. I never really was one for remembering things from movies, excepting things like Use the Force, Luke and Beam me up, Scotty, but for some reason this came to me now as if dredged from a half-forgotten dream: It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us calling them from out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together... I remember thinking of Bella during the movie and not knowing why, because she'd not been trying to kill herself, had just become some sort of adrenaline junkie because she could not remember how to live after Edward had left her, because she'd given to him everything in her life, everything she had, however stupid or blind or loving it might've been, and was nothing but an empty shell of a girl who had once been, if not vibrant, vivacious and filled with possibilities and strength.

And then Edward had left, and taken everything she'd once been with him, and had yet to give it back. She was Bella, yes, beneath the marble skin and red-orange eyes, but either life or motherhood or death had changed her, and was smaller now. Less alive, maybe, or jut more fearful than a creature that was near impossible to destroy should be. It was hard for me to like this Bella, who still behaved like a fragile human amongst more powerful creatures born of myth and legend. I knew why she did it, understood it even, but could not like it and could barely remember why I had once liked her now... What lingered after them was not life, but the most trivial list of mundane facts: a clock ticking on a wall, a room dim at noon, and the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself.

Edward didn't say anything, though he must have heard my thoughts. I think he saw it too. He loved Bella, but she was different. Not bad different, but just different, and maybe that would change in time or maybe not, but he knew it was his doing and accepted rebuke for it without words. "Even as we are afraid of the Volturi, they are afraid of us. They fear Alice's precognitive abilities especially, because in all their years they have never seen anything like it... They tried to hide it, Aro especially, but as much as they desire power, they fear for what they already have."

God, you can be long-winded sometimes, I yawned, adjusting myself into a more comfortable position.

He was staring blankly out at something, lost in memories of his own. They could be such downers sometimes, vamps. I mean, yes, we could well be killed in the next couple of days, but why should we let that detract from the now? And now I've found a decent place by the river free from everyone but one annoying mind-reading leech where I plan to take a nap. Or maybe just think about things, like how I probably didn't do so hot on my Beowulf exam, or how if we had school tomorrow I'd have to convince one of the vamps – Kate, probably – to call into the school and pretend to be our parents, saying we were sick or the roads were too slick, or something in case the Volturi ended up coming during school hours. Kate would probably be impossible about it, but she'd do it. "There are five of them, you know: Aro, Caius, and Marcus, and the wives. Athenodora and Sulpicia. They were cousins before they were changed..."

And I want to sleep now...

"There used to be a third, Didyme, and she was Aro's mortal sister. He changed her himself..."

Disgusting... Leech, leech, go away, come again another day...

"She was Marcus's wife. A few decades before they overthrew the Romanians, she and Marcus wanted to leave, going their own way. Aro pretended to let them... and then Didyme was destroyed. They claimed the Romanians did it, and that is why they went to war, but I could read Aro's thoughts, and he feared me knowing the truth. He does not know I know it, I do not think, but I know he killed his sister to keep Marcus with him, for his power is great..."

What good does three thousand year old politics do anyone?

"I do not know, Jacob." Edward slid off the tree and, in seconds, landed beside me, hardly leaving a mark in the snow. And then, to my great surprise, he took a seat beside me. The pack was never going to believe this. "Perhaps if we can use this somehow... But Carlisle is a pacifist at heart and lived with them for many decades; he does not want to see this going to war. He thinks that, if we can but halt them long enough to make them listen to us, they will not destroy Nessie or any of us. But...?"

"But what's the likelihood that vampires that flew halfway around the world to kill us will leave without doing so?"

He nodded, and I resigned myself to this conversation. "They are five, plus the ten permanent guards, and more than a few temporary guards who they made and were disappointed in for lack of special power and would normally be gotten rid of some way or another. They are the peace and civilization of our society... but we are nine now, and different from them, and have promised us no harm, 'one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark.'"

"I thought they were Italian?"

He did not answer me. "No matter what happens today, or tomorrow, or whenever they arrive, they will try to destroy us. They found Carlisle amusing when he was but one vampire who refused to hunt humans, but there are the Denali now too... and Garrett, at least, is seriously tempted into keeping our diet. I cannot speak to Carlisle about it, because he wants peace so badly, but we are running out of time, for once, and I must ask you... if we go against the Volturi – not just to demand they listen to us, but actually fight them – will you fight with us?"

Yes, my thoughts answered before I thought it fully through. They were family, the Cullens, in some twisted way, and werewolves were created to destroy vampires. What could be better then destroying the leaders of the vampire world? But, my mind remembered too late, the pups haven't been in a fight before, and Leah is somewhat... incapacitated 'cause of the twins. And not all the witnesses you have gathered will fight, I know that much, if it comes to that.

"If it comes to it, even Carlisle will fight. Tanya and hers will not abandon us again. Peter and Charlotte will stay, as will the Amazonians and the Irish, I think. At least one of the nomads will as well, and Benjamin may go against Amun and stay, as will his mate if that happens. That will give us another dozen or so fighters. We may have a chance."

"And if we somehow succeed?" Will you be Lord of the Mosquitoes then? Will you go to Italy and take over their castle, or will you build one here? Will you suffer other vampires to drink human blood if you're in charge, or will you be prepared to fight with them too?

"If it comes to that..." he trailed off. And after a while he left, not having said anything more.

I wanted to talk to Leah, who had a better grasp of vampire politics than I did – again, thanks to Kate – but I couldn't begrudge her her day with her mom. The pack had rather been monopolizing her time, and she really did need the rest. I mean, if it came to fighting, I knew we would stand beside the Cullens, but win or lose that fight, I could not see any positive outcome. Blood-sucker HQ, right here in Forks? Of course, the other option might be death for all of us, so I supposed that wasn't the best outcome either. But leading people lead you to doing things you never thought you'd do, like protect leeches, leaving your home behind. Like telling your English teacher you turn into a wolf. Like getting arrested with Sam Uley, who if things had gone the way they had in the past, would have been my Beta and ostensibly my friend... I mean, our great-grandfather's were like cousins and Alpha/Beta in the old pack.

But it was no use trying to figure out the past or the future. That was one of Leah's rules that I'd gratefully adopted. You couldn't change the past or anticipate the future; all you can do is deal with the now. And now I was on the edge of a battle no one might survive, not knowing what to do or what was right, with only a vague nagging feeling in the back of my mind that, no matter what I did, a little part of it would always be wrong.


	3. The First

"...She said, 'I think I'll go to Boston. I think I'll start a new life. I think I'll start it over,  
where no one knows my name. I'll get out of California, I'm tired of the weather.  
I think I'll get a lover and fly 'em out to Spain'..."

Augustana "Boston"

* * *

There was a phone ringing by my head, annoying me as it shouted, rather loudly, "Take me down to Paradise City, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty."

"Lee, get your phone..." I mumbled, turning onto my side before remembering that Leah wasn't here. She'd gone to Charlie's with Nessie and apparently run into Sue there. I guess Sue had wanted to have a "talk" with her or knit booties or something, as I don't think they've seen each other since Seth, er, kidnapped Leah. She's probably going crazy... unless Sue's making cookies. She makes very good cookies... When we were in elementary and middle school, she'd make gingerbread men every Christmas and decorate them in all sorts of crazy icing-clothes and send a huge bag of them to school with Seth, and, since I think I've been friends with Seth for like ever, Quil and Embry and I always got more cookies then anyone else in our class... and all the bits of broken extras when we went to his house.

One of my clearest, earliest memories is of right after my fifth birthday, when Mom died in that stupid accident at Forks' one stop light, all because we'd run out of milk and Jenny's Quik Mart and Gas Station closed at ten and for some reason we really needed some... only some guy didn't stop at the red light because he was too drunk to see straight, and stopped instead when he T-boned Mom's car... Like half the town was at the house in the week afterwards, with casseroles and whatever else people bring when someone dies. Sue was a near permanent fixture at the house for a while afterwards, and Harry and Charlie would always take Dad out fishing, trying to keep him from spiralling into depression. And with Sue came Leah, who was like eight at the time, and Seth, who was four. I remember my sisters locked themselves in their room and wouldn't come out, so Leah was bored stiff and reduced to helping her mother in the kitchen, by which I mean licking the bowl and stuff like that. Seth and I had been fighting over something stupid, like a toy or the remote or whatever little kids fight over, and, as we stopped, we heard laughter coming from one side. It was Leah, holding the biggest plate I think we owned, was laughing her ass off.

"That was the girliest fighting I've ever seen," she declared, thrusting the plate into my hands. On it were six large chocolate chip cookies and a whole lot of crumbs. "Next time just pull each other's hair; I think it might hurt more than whatever you were doing."

I think I said, "Okay," just staring at her in wonder. Usually people shouted at you for fighting. She didn't, like my sisters would've, nor did she look all weepy like everyone else. I didn't quite understand then what had happened. I just thought Mom was taking a real long time to get milk, and would be back soon. At least, that's what I think I thought.

"Good. Mom said for you to stop fighting and to give you these." She looked down at the plate, then back at the two of us. "I got bored while you were fighting and ate the others." And then she stalked off back towards the kitchen...

…and them sometimes she made these wonderful cookies with M&Ms in them, or Hershey's Kisses, and she had these sugar cookies where she put something like cinnamon on them...

And how I want a cookie. Way to go Jacob. Must get Leah to bring back some.

"Dude," Embry called, "answer the damn phone already."

Zack gave an agreeing mumble, and I searched with my hands closed for the thing. I swear, if it was Kate calling to ask how I liked the names Alexi and Aloysha Black, I'm going to burn her in nice tiny pieces, and Leah would just have to find another maid-of-honour or whatever. "'Lo?"

"Jake," came a soft whisper. Everyone else must be asleep already.

Trying to wake myself up a little more, "What's up, Lee? How're Sue and Charlie?" Leah I'll wake up in the middle of the night to talk to. Leeches who don't seem to be able to read a clock, not so much.

"I'm not with Mom or Charlie."

"Bothering you already?" I chuckled. Sue is great and Charlie's no so bad himself, but I imagine having to be in the same house with superhearing while your mom does your dead dad's best friend is just too much torture. Or she could've woken up and been unable to stand the smell of fish any longer. Pregnancy had done some weird things to her – yes, my fault, I know but werewolf! Hello. We're not exactly known for our self control. I mean, I was at Sam's place once while we were all still one pack and saw Embry loose it on a jar of peanut butter that wouldn't unscrew, and that was on a good day. Who'd've thought she'd actually get pregnant? She certainly didn't. I thought it was amazing. I mean, not only am I married to a woman I love, who just happens to be Leah Clearwater and doesn't take shit from nobody and is drop-dead gorgeous and has a sarcastic remark for every occasion, but we're going to have kids too. Granted, the fact that neither of us have jobs and are both werewolves living in the woods is a touch problematic, but, with a little work, I think Esme can be goaded into building us a proper house. So what if there's another bet going on about their sex? I've a Cullen-lent fifty on two boys. Quil has money on two girls, because he thinks I deserve two mini-Leah's. Seth has two hundred on one of each. Where he got two hundred bucks, I dunno, but it doesn't really matter. "Want me to wait up for you or-"

"I'm at Sea-Tac," she said quickly, confusing my sleepy mind. Sea...Tac... Oh! Airport! But what's she doing at an airport? Are Alice and Jasper finally on their way back? And why do they always send Leah on their errands? Granted, I can see why they might not want Quil driving one of their fancy cars, but Seth's a good driver...

Still, I felt a chill wind pass threw me as she said that, which was kinda odd. Not the cold part, 'cause most everything felt cold to me, but the wind part. The Cullens had built the lean-to well. How a wind might get into it was beyond me. My voice, for no reason known to me, crackled as I asked why. I even felt cold. Like my heart had stopped beating and no one would tell me why. I'm sure she was just on another Cullen errand-

"Long story. Bella begged me." (There were the sounds of people and a voice on a speaker in the background going, "Flight twenty-four fifty-eight to Seoul now boarding," which I found odd, 'cause the didn't let you onto the terminals any more to wait for people, and I don't think they do boarding calls in the places you can wait.) "To keep Ness and the twins safe."

But there was no way going to pick up people from the airport would keep you safe, unless- "Lee-" I spoke loudly into the phone. She can't be doing this. She can't be leaving. She can't be leaving me. There's got to be another explanation, there has to be. Maybe she didn't mean Sea-Tac airport, but just the general Seattle-Tacoma area. She couldn't be leaving. I mean, hadn't she begged? Hadn't she told me I could never leave her? Didn't that mean she could never leave me, even if it sounded like her voice was catching in her throat and the action was against her will? Since when did Leah Clearwater – Leah Black – do anything not of her own free will? She couldn't be doing this. She physically couldn't be doing this. There's no way-

"I love you," Leah said hastily, as if she thought she might never get to say it again, putting all her feeling and all her fears into the words so that it rocked me, and for a moment I couldn't think. What little breath I'd managed to take caught in my throat and my heart just all out stopped and shattered into a thousand pieces, or, at least, that's what it felt like as I tried to process what she was saying, what she was doing.

But that passed quickly, and I began, "I-" forcing air into my lungs before I realized she'd hung up the phone. Clambering up from my place in the lean-to, I struggled through the mass of werewolves towards the path that lead to the Cullens and the cars. I pressed redial.

It went to voicemail after only one ring. It wasn't her voice on the other end – I'm pretty sure she didn't even bother with checking her voicemail, or maybe didn't know she had one anyway – but Emmett's saying, "Hi! The Alpha wolf-girl isn't in at the moment, so leave your name, number, the name of the country you wish to invade, and the super-secret password-" I hung up and tried again. I shut Emmett off before he finished his first word. And tried again, and again, and again.

She must've shut the phone off for the flight... The tenth time I tried, I left a message. Placing all my hope that she'd listen. "Lee! Leah! I don't know what you're thinking but whatever it is, stop it. Come home. Get off that plane and come back. You can't just leave like this. You didn't even say goodbye. If you want to leave me... I'll..." I gulped, "...I'll deal with it, but tell me to my face. Let me at least say," the voicemail clicked off, and I finished somewhat lamely, breathing heavily not from running along the path but because I couldn't seem to calm it down, "goodbye."

Just as I came upon the manor, I was startled to see a figure flying out of it. A figure, surprisingly, I recognized through the blurry haze he was before he stopped in front of me. "Tell me you were just dreaming," he demanded, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking with his strange yellow eyes straight up at me. It was kinda weird, and I couldn't figure out why Edward might be interested in Leah leaving me unless... Nessie! She had Nessie with her! And they were going... somewhere. Maybe Seoul, but that could've been another flight... Or maybe...

"I... no..." was all I managed, trying to get around him, wanting to get to my car, where I could drive a hundred miles an hour... take the back-roads through the Olympic Forest and hope no humans were patrolling there... hours though, even then, unless someone had found out how to run three, four hundred miles in moments? He wouldn't let me, and for one moment he stood perfectly still, as if not realizing what I said or what I was thinking besides, Must... Leah... Sea-Tac... Hurry, hurry, hurry... And then I caught it, a noise halfway between a sob and a growl forming in his chest before he spun around and rushed back into the house.

Loudly, louder then necessary, he shouted, "Bella!" and for the rest of his family.

I, feeling the same emotion writhe within me, followed, though it might've only been the reaction of a trained dog after his master – and that was what I felt like now.

Inside, Edward was standing, Carlisle and Esme looking at his stricken face with worry and doing much the same when their eyes darted and caught my own. Rose and Emmett, after a moment, joined them, Rose in a negligee that would've been inappropriate in a "gentlemen's club" that didn't even stir the crudest of insults in my mind. Kate and her nomad and the Irish women were still there, apparently not having moved, watching the weather channel as keenly as they'd Titanic, though low pressure formations had much less annoying music.

Walking at human pace down the stairs, Bella came down, looking defiant. I think this is the first hint of the old, stubborn Bella I remember from before Edward left her. But I cannot rejoice in the slow return of my friend from her self-imposed exile, filling the marble shell she has become with something you might actually call life. Not when this return is heralded by the destruction of mine. I bet you she's been holding a grudge against Leah since that time she yelled at her about me while Bella was still pregnant and, knowing Leah, she'd found a way to make even harmless words like "the" and "you" into dangerous, cutting phrases.

No, that was wrong. Bella didn't hold grudges. For the life of her, she couldn't even be angry at Jasper for almost killing her on her eighteenth. She blamed herself for bleeding forgetting that all the other vampires in the room had restrained themselves, the fool. She didn't have a cruel bone in her body...

Yet everything she touched broke, starting with herself. She'd almost broken Charlie, letting him think she was dying, before I brought him to the manor. And now, already busily in the process of breaking the entirety of the vampire world, she was taking the time to break me.

What had I done? I'd been friends with her, and maybe I'd had a crush on her 'cause she was a girl who actually bothered to hang out with me that was broken almost as soon as I realized all she wanted from life was to die, because a single lifetime with a man who could love you wasn't as good as an eternity as an undead creature, where you'd pretend to be Gods among the mortals and would never change, never know anything other then what you'd already felt, and would slowly forget everything that had ever mattered to you... I didn't love her any more. Maybe I'd never loved her, and it was just a flirtation of opportunity, and had any other girl done as she had, I would've felt the same. But she had been my friend. Once. When she was still herself.

It wasn't worth it to have old Bella back, not if that meant she... well, did whatever she'd done... and now Leah was gone. With the twins, and Nessie.

I was near shaking with anger, but didn't phase. I could do that at least. Get answers before I freaked Seth out that his sister was...

...was gone.

"Bella," Edward said very quietly, as if this was no more than after-dinner conversation, "I thought you said Nessie was at your fathers."

Unrepentant, "I did."

"Then why did Jacob just get a call from his wife saying she was at the airport? With our daughter?"

"Because they are at the airport – and will be flying far away from us and the Volturi by now, to some place where they'll be safe."

The room exploded into voices and noise from every direction, and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. So I gave up and gave in, phasing the moment I was on the porch and running before my feet hit the ground. Patrolling. That's what I needed to do. Run so I don't have to think. It worked before. It'll work again. And then I'll wake up and realize this is all some awful dream, and Leah will be there, laughing at me for having such a ridiculous dream and I'll make fun of her and the rainbow werewolves that paraded through hers and imply her thoughts were going to make the twins purple and neon green when they were born, and she'd mumble something about skittles that would lead to me having to run and get her pickles or habenero peppers or pineapple or pizza with pickles and peppers and pineapple... and I was hungry again. Great going Jake.

It's all only a dream. A nightmare. Think of other things. Think about... think about what Sir Edward the Annoying said about the Volturi. One of them killed his sister. Twice. First to make her a vampire, then to destroy her so her mate wouldn't leave. The second one doesn't know... They're old... old vampires make mistakes... forget human things... Powerful... greedy... bellicose...

Whoa, Jake! said Quil, who was running the border near the south spur of the border, where it was the closest to La Push, What's with the vocab words? Leah refusing to sleep with you until you get an A in Mr. Mora's class?

Predictably, Little brother here! I don't care what Leah might or might not be doing with you, I just don't want to have to see the pictures!

You're such a baby, Seth.

And you're such a baby-lover-

Stop ragging on Claire, okay! She-

But I wasn't, said Seth, who was luckily at the opposite end of the border, towards Lake Pleasant, I was picking on you. Big difference.

Can you guys shut up for like five minutes? I'm trying to think?

Of course O High and Mighty Alpha. Trying to remember what Lee wanted you to pick up from Quickmart?

No, I growled, trying to repress the memories of the last half-hour. It didn't work, and I could see through Quil's eyes as he stumbled at the news, while Seth came to a full on halt, one paw still in the air.

The cacophony I'd tried to avoid in the manor moved into my head.

What-?

Why-?

Where-?

When-?

How-?

Who? I snapped irritatedly. You've not said that one yet.

Seth was still standing still, unable to come to terms with the news I'd inadvertently given him. You've gotta be wrong. I mean, this is Leah we're talking about. She doesn't run away. She fights. And when she breaks an arm, she continues to fight. And when she's bleeding to death, she still fights. She just doesn't- They drugged her. That has to be it. They drugged her or one of the leeches has some kind of mind-control powers they've not told us about. She can't be gone... He seemed to realize his paw was still in the air and set it down without noticing what he was doing. I mean... Seth sat, and went very quiet.

How could none of the other leeches not know? There're like thirty of them stuffed into that house, an image of a polka-doted Volkswagen came up in his mind, and for some unknown reason, coroners were pulling the dead bodies of at least ten clowns out of it, how did none of them not notice anything?

I shrugged and continued running, trying not to think about it. I didn't need to think about it, 'cause it wasn't happening, and this would all just be some big mistake. Maybe there was a restaurant named Sea-Tac that played airplane boarding announcements in the background. That had to be it. And the food was so-

How could she just leave? I mean, I know she likes Nessie and all, but it's not like Leah. She still wanted to fight, even after knocking boots with you. For once, Seth didn't interrupt as Quil mentioned me and Leah doing anything besides being within ten feet of each other. Why'd she run away?

Clone... we heard Seth mutter, they made a clone of her and...

It doesn't matter. It's not real, I told them. This is all some messed up dream. Emmett but LSD in the vampires' blood and laced our food with 'shrooms. It can't be real... Leah was Leah and solid and permanent and inflexible and wouldn't just listen to a vampire's whim. Especially when it was a vampire she hated. But, with how worried she's been lately, and how tired she is, and all the hormones... No... It couldn't be. She was really at Charlie's and would come home in the morning and I could even go there now and check up on her...

Sure, Jake, my Beta said slowly. I'm sure it's all just a joke... I knew he didn't believe it, but he was trying to help. What do you want to talk about instead?

Penguins... Peitfores... Pie... Let's talk about pie. I like pie.

Pie is good, Quil agreed distantly.

It comes in apple and apricot and blueberry and blackberry and banana and I just don't get it. I just don't fucking understand it. She didn't even...

I know, agreed Quil, while Seth was thinking of ways to make it seem like Leah wasn't gone, just as ultimately as Harry, pictures of both Lee and their dad flickering through his mind to be wiped away by alien conspiracies and ghola before his thoughts came circling back to his dead father and his missing sister. I know.


	4. and the Last

"...'I think I'll go to Boston. I think that I'm just tired. I think I need a new town,  
to leave this all behind. I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset.  
I hear it's nice in the summer; some snow would be nice'..."

Augustana "Boston"

* * *

It was better the next morning, the aching pain. I didn't want it to be. I wanted the pain that felt like a heavy cold settling like lead weights in my chest, so I could not breathe. I needed the tripping beat of a broken heart to remind me that all was not okay with the world, and the sinking, sick feeling in the stomach that came with it. I didn't want to believe the world could go on without Leah around.

Okay, logically I knew it could, with gravity and the sun and spinning planets and all that, but I didn't want it to. I did not like the idea that I could survive without Leah, and damned if I was going to let her go easily. Edward had tried to find the flight they'd been on, but all we'd known was the approximate time it'd left, and unless he managed to get security tapes from the airport (which even he admitted was a hopeless task), he couldn't tell whether they'd gone to New York, Atlanta, or Seoul, the three flights they were most likely to be on, which also took them to major airport hubs so that, even if we could determine which it was, we'd have to go through the same process again there. It could be done, given enough time, energy, and bribery, but we'd none of that.

It was snowing. Not the three feet the weathermen had promised, but getting there, with no signs of slowing. Which meant the Volturi were coming, if Alice's vision had held true. Whatever the pixie was up to now, and whyever she wasn't here. She could be annoying sometimes, but where she went Jasper did, and he'd been in wars and junk, and probably knew how to fight better than anyone else here.

And we were going to fight. We might be able to make peace... but Edward didn't want to. No, that was wrong. He wanted to, but it was all kill-or-be-killed-in-the-long-run and if we could somehow get the Volturi to start fighting amongst themselves, or weaken them somehow, but the only way we had to do that was the knowledge Arrow or Arnold or what's-his-face killed his sister, one of the other's mates, but that was like two, three thousand years ago and for all we knew they were over it, whatever Edward claimed otherwise. Personally, I didn't think it'd work, but then again, seeing Seth's reaction to Leah being gone (as well as my own), I could see he might have a point.

We didn't go to school today, even though I think it was a two-hour-delay or something like that. None of us even considered it. The pups I sent to wait inside the manor under Kate's annoying but admittedly watchful eye, and the rest of us ran. And ran. And ran.

There were no patrols any more, just whoever running with me that had the energy. At first it was just Quil, in his helpful silence, agreeing with whatever I said no matter how idiotic it was, just to try to calm me down, but then it was Embry too, and even though Embry perhaps liked Leah the least of our packmates, he was quite vocal in his astonishment at what she'd done. And Seth... Seth came later, as cold and silent as if someone had died, and, as much as they annoyed each other, I don't think any of us had quite realized what the Clearwater siblings meant to each other. Even sharing each other's minds.

Edward even joined us after a while, moving like a blur beside us. He said he couldn't take the thoughts any more and he needed time to think around people who at least didn't think it'd, generally, been a good idea.

At least you have the rest of your family, bloodsucker, I remember growling. Bella sent away all of mine.

He didn't say anything, and that made me think he was a little upset with Bella himself. They'd kiss and make up before the day was out (gross vampire-love. Shudder), but right now he was more than a little peeved. After all, Bella'd only been a vampire for a few months, not knowing the decades or even centuries the others had lived thinking they could never have a child... Like Leah...

Stop that! Don't think that! Just think on the Volturi. Battle. Sneak behind their flank, startle them. Find some way to take out Ms. I-can-torture-things... maybe she can only use her power on one person at once? If there are enough of us, and we can keep her confused...? And what about the other ones? What powers did they have? Going against normal vampires is tough enough, but ones with centuries of fight experience? Hardly any of them are as old as the main ones, I bet, if what Edward says is true, so they have to be whatever qualifies as young for leeches... Does that help or hurt us?

Everything seemed dull and grey and cold and there was a pounding in my head that made it hard to think or breathe or do anything but be, but every time I gave into it and tried to rest, tried to think or sleep or do anything, my thoughts kept on running back to Leah.

Where was she now? Somewhere warm and sunny and hot, or on a plane to one of those places? Where was she going? How far was she running away from me?

No, not from me, I had to keep reminding myself. She's doing this to keep the twins and Nessie safe. She's doing it for them...

I could imagine getting off a plane somewhere in Africa or Australia, a place with large, burning deserts, where vampires would sparkle for miles on the sand... or not. It wouldn't be unusual to cover all your skin from that kind of sun... somewhere hot and muggy then, where people wore few clothes and it'd be unusual to find someone as pale or covered as a vampire would be. If she was lucky, maybe she could hide herself some sort of tribe there, some tribe that would never know what she or Nessie was but would see to it they were safe... I know all the "native peoples of the Americas" are different, but Leah always looked... (is exotic the word? I dunno. She's the kinda person who, if you saw her in a movie, you couldn't tell if she was Indian or Polynesian or Lebanese or some mixture of the three with a hint of English or French thrown in. She was just break-all-odds beautiful like that, more so because she could still look as amazing when covered in mud and other collected forest litter, and she was a sexy wolf. I don't even know if that's possible... for a wolf to be sexy, I mean, except to other wolves, but, as I don't know what they call it, I guess that's the best term for it. Nor do I know how to specifically explain how she is, just that, well, she is. I think it's something to do with the ears... and how amazingly short she is. I mean, the pups are smaller, but she's a good head shorter than me... don't ask me how that's sexy, but... she's beautiful. Let's just end it there) exotic. Like she would look native anywhere. And, to blend it, that'd be good. The natives might no she's not, but as long as she didn't try for Italy she'd be fine...

And she could be taken in by that tribe, or town, or wherever she found she could say in, and they'd be the ones that were there when the twins were born, and they'd be the ones to see them grow up, and maybe, after it's been long enough, after she thinks all of us (even the vampires) are all long dead, she'll marry one of those townspeople who were there as our kids grew up and forget all about me...

You're being melodramatic, Jacob, I told myself, but couldn't help it. I felt lost and hurt and abandoned, and if I wanted to be melodramatic, I damn-well would be.

Dude, Embry said, phasing to join me a little after midnight, Quil having given up trying to calm me down hours ago and went, ostensibly, "to school," which, in this case, meant to hang out with Claire, you need therapy.

Sure, sure.

It's only for a little while, I'm sure. As soon as the Leech Lords come and we kick them back to kingdom come, Bella'll tell us where she sent them, and we'll be able to find them. She'll be gone a week at the most, and I'll have all sorts of fun things to tell us about annoying people in the plane near her and the wonders of, I dunno, Brazilian teriyaki sauce.

...Or we'll all die and I'll never see her again.

One, major downer Jake. Go, get a Xanex, and work on being all peppy and "we're going to win" before you go back to the manor, and, two, he said with disdain, you're starting to sound like a bad romantic comedy – without any of the funny bits.

Dryly, Thank you, Embry, as always, for you're overwhelming support.

I know. What would you do without me? He was running towards me, going north along the border with the forest, But come on, Jake, we're worried 'bout you. Had to practically tie down Seth to keep him from running to the airport about an hour ago, finally realizing that it wasn't a cause of alien abduction or something... I think Dracula gave him something to make him sleep, too. And you're even worse over this then Seth is...

Gee golly Mister, I wonder why...

I could sense Embry rolling his eyes. I can't believe she left either – it's just not like her – but she'll be back. She'll not be able to stay away long. I mean, Leah's never exactly had sense of self-preservation or, oh, I dunno, much common sense-

Hey!

What? She married you, didn't she?

I went Hey! Again.

I'm just saying, that, good idea or bad, Leah'll be back. Eventually.

But Embry had always been saying that, I think, about everything. About his dad, about – okay, well, mostly his dad, but still. It required a faith I did not have that everything was meant to end up well. Life was not some happy go lucky '50s sitcom. Parents didn't always laugh at their kids' antics. Families didn't always recover from a fight or a misunderstanding. People died, not to dramatic music as they fought for something they believed in, or old in bed surrounded by friends and family and love and more poignant music – sometimes they were young and sick, or in the wrong place at the wrong time, and sometimes the battles they fought and died in weren't the noble ones of movies and books, where sacrifice was honoured and something wonderful built from the ruins; sometimes they died just because the men in charge were greedy, or quarrelsome, or afraid. The days of speeches before guillotines and the hangman's noose are long gone, replaced by nuclear bombs and homemade bombs and missiles that could go for miles and miles... and you died just because you lived in a city the enemy thought if it destroyed they might win, or because they wanted to make a statement that had nothing to do with you, or they missed. People died, and people got sick, and people lost their jobs, and people left, without ever knowing why when you thought they loved you...

I couldn't be hopeful. What did I have to hope for anyway? I should be happy that Leah's not here to get killed with us, today or tomorrow or whenever the Volturi come to us in this horrible snow that I think a normal-sized wolf would drown in, and that she and our children are safe. I should be overjoyed that she's doing something intelligent, so that she'll live and the twins will live, even if I'll never get to see them. I knew that, if we went to war with the Volturi, if Edward got his way and we tried to kill them before they killed us, at least some of us would wind up dead. Maybe all of us. Maybe we'd all die regardless of the outcome. But God above, I wanted Leah here with me.

I remember Leah always being there, waiting haughtily with my sisters when they were in middle school and the rest of us still in elementary for us, so we could all walk to Old Quil's place, which was closest, and hang out for about an hour before Ms. Call came to pick up Embry and Sue came to pick me and my sisters and Seth and Leah up, and she'd drop us off at home on the way.

I remember her hanging out with my sisters, and even a little of the typical boy-having-a-thing-for-his-sisters'-best-friend thing from when I was like in seventh grade.

I remember her constant presence, the centre of the pack upon which we all turned, the self-styled "homebody" that had made the home we'd taken over, and gave us the mothering we needed and yelled at us when we were stupid... I remember how just last weekend she'd helped Judith and Zack study for some science test they had and how they'd come to her like proud children to their parents, when they got the test back on Wednesday... I remember so many things, and she was always there. Always! And now...

Vampires... I growled, smelling the sickly sweetness as the wind turned, coming from the south-east for but a moment...

Vampires, Embry repeated, and I could hear Zack, who'd been sitting on the porch at the manor, phase out. But not strong... scouts?

The Volturi didn't strike me as the type of vampire that sent scouts ahead, let alone from that part of the woods. I can't hear anything moving... Either they're just standing at the border, or... I didn't finish my sentence, because they suddenly came into view about five hundred yards in front of me standing by one of the larger trees on this side of the national forest: two men in Elizabethan dress, as still as stone.

For a moment, I thought it was the Volturi, and was preparing to lunge when I felt Zack phase back and, relating what I saw to the mind-raper, shouted, Stop! into my mind. Stop! Edward says they're not the Volturi. Carlisle, Maggie, and Zafrina will be there soon.

I let lose an angry growl. I couldn't even tear apart random leeches now? Okay, I knew their reasoning – they might be nomads sent by Alice and Jasper or something – but it would have done me no end of good to rip apart a pair of flouncily-dressed bloodsuckers.

"Well look what we have here, Stefan," said the closer as I drew nearer, Embry coming around behind them but still a hundred or so yards off.

The second responded. "Copiii de la Luna. But I had thought those nenorocitii italienehad killed the last of them a hundred-and-seven years ago."

"Yes... Caius Licinius Regillus and his incident with the priculici... pity it didn't kill him. I did not think it was the full moon yet."

"It isn't, unless the moon turns differently in the New World. Or, perhaps, we have lost a day somewhere."

"More like a week or so."

"Or, perhaps, Vladimir, we gained a week somewhere." Both their voices seemed oddly flat, as if "losing" a week was not something to be worried over.

"Or a month. It is winter, certainly, and we are in the north... "

"It is not impossible," said the second, Stefan, who seemed completely uninterested as I phased and I pulled on a pair of shorts. Now that I was human again and could see colours better, I could see both were wearing what actors in Shakespeare's plays always wore – that whole doublet and jerkin and hose nonsense – in deep, deep back, thought it looked as if there was a layer of dust upon their shoulders, like their hats, they'd forgotten to shake off, or was possibly just some odd silver decoration I was too savage to know a thing about. If not the Volturi, who are they? Certainly no one Alice and Jasper would find in South America... I think. But who knew with vampires? They could be long-lost conquistadors for all I knew, "that we have lost a year."

"I would hope not. If we have missed the fight, I will be most displeased."

"As would I. But as the unusual werewolf is staring at us most peculiarly, I dare say we are right on time."

"Oh, yes, the werewolf. I had already forgotten," the first – Vladimir, I think – of the two very pale, very creepy looking vampires said. And I say creepy in full knowledge of a large percentage of Tanya, Kate, and Irina's sex crimes, thanks to Kate's love of storytelling and Leah's inability to shut her up before details are shared. I wonder what Leah would think of these-

-and then I remember that Leah is gone, and will not be around to tell me what she thinks of the latest leech arrivals. She will not be around to share with me any of her thoughts on life, the universe, and everything ever again. I forgot for a moment, with the vampires here. I feel ashamed because of it.

But I remembered myself enough, at least, to play the Alpha. "You're trespassing onto our land, vampires. Who are you, and who sent you?" I hope I look menacing, but doubt it. It's hard to be anywhere near as scary in human form as you can be as a wolf. At least that's what Nessie tells me – told me. She's gone too now.

"Ah. Custes portae. We are at the right place then."

"Guard dog, more like."

"Still, it knows of our kind," said one to the other, in a very odd monotone, and then, without moving or changing his voice at all, spoke presumably to me. "We have come because the nomads have spoken of the Volturi coming to attack the coven here. We wish to offer our... services... to the coven leader."

"Even if he was," said the other more softly, "kith with Aro Sempronius Regillus at one time."

"We all have our little faults, Stefan."

"To be on peaceful terms with those that killedDumitru and Lizuca is hardly a 'minor fault'."

"But they wish to destroy the Regilli and their wives. That makes up for most infractions, does it not?" And then, probably to me (neither had turned to look at the other as they spoke or, indeed, moved at all), "We are called Stefan," he gestured to the slightly shorter, slightly younger (in mortal years) looking leech beside him with an almost imperceptible movement of one hand, "and I Vladimir. Where is the leader of the coven that resides here?"

"Carlisle will be along in a moment," I said, Embry hardly moving from behind the odd pair. "I'm Jacob, the Alpha of the pack here." And the only Alpha once again...

Carlisle was standing next to me no more than a minute later. The head of the Amazonians – the wild-looking Zafrina who dressed in animal skins and wouldn't have looked out of place in a Brazilian version of Tarzan. And not as the damsel in distress – came too, and, like Zack had said, little Maggie. Maggie, who was almost double Carlisle's age and, if I remembered correctly, knew lies when she heard them, or had a truth sense, or something like that.

"I am Carlisle Cullen, and leader of the coven here. This is Zafrina, head of the Amazonas, and Margaret Crogen of the Irish," the good doctor said, though Maggie looked a little off-put at being called her proper name. None of them, though, seemed too pleased to see the vamps in front of them, which said something, truly, about both the amount of time I spent with these leeches and how much it was probably not a good idea to be around Stefan and Vladimir.

"We know who you are," said Stefan.

"Yes. You are the one Aro Sempronius and Caius Licinius want to kill."

"We have heard rumours."

"They are gathering witnesses."

"Even as you gather yours."

"But theirs are to spread the word they have destroyed the yellow-eyes and their abomination."

"There is rumour Athenodora Ulpia Flava and Sulpicia Mucia Atella are being brought with the Regilli and their guards."

"Rumour has it that yours are to help you fight and destroy the nenorocitii italiene."

Carlisle, who seemed to understand what they were talking about, shook his head. "We have no wish to fight. We desire only to show the Volturi that they have been misinformed and no Immortal Child has been created."

Both waved their hands at this, and took a step across the border. "Immortal Child, no Immortal Child," said Vladimir, "it does not matter to us. We do not think you will get out of this unscathed."

"No one ever does with the Italian bastards. Our castles are still in ruins, hidden beneath the ashes of Dumitru and Lizuca and three thousand years of dirt and the contagions of city and cement..."

"There is a chance that we will be able to have our revenge."

"And a chance is enough."

Weary but welcoming, Carlisle led them back to the manor. I phased back. Those the Romanians, you think? I asked, yawning and continuing south once more.

Not to put to fine a point on it, Jake, he said, sniffing disdainfully at the place the leeches had been standing before turning and trotting after me, but duh. With a name like Vladimir how could they not be? I'm just surprised neither of them introduced themselves as Dracula.

Dracula was Transylvanian.

Transylvania, Romania, Tasmania, wherever. They're old geysers with a hatred for Italian food. Probably the Romanians they like to talk about as being the oldest. What do you think that means?

Three, four thousand years. Old enough to remember the hanging gardens or something – at least, that's what Kate says. I think. Maybe she was talking about something else... I kind block her out.

That's a long time.

Le duh.

He rolled his eyes at me. It was kinda disconcerting to see him do it, and see him doing it through his eyes. Damn hive/pack/whatever mind. I certainly wouldn't want to live that long. I mean, okay, you get to see cool things when they happen, like Star Wars or Pompeii, but think of all the boring years in between.

'Cause the leeches lived forever to see a volcano explode and a sci-fi movie?

I wouldn't've wanted to die without knowing seeing it. Or the new Star Trek. Or-

Neither of us had remembered Zack was still phased, he was so quiet. Matty's never seen Star Trek.

What! Embry paused. How is that even possible?

I dunno, he shrugged. Ask Judy. She's his sister.

It has to be physically impossible for any teenager living in America not to have seen at least part of one Star Trek episode. I mean, there are like five series with like twenty-odd seasons between them... and reruns on all the time.

I like the tribbles episode. That was a classic.

I wonder, if you sent leeches into space, would they be able to survive? Like without a spacesuit, I mean. They don't need to breathe and they don't exactly mind the cold.

I dunno. Would you rocket them packets of freeze-dried blood?

Maybe... or maybe they could eat the tribbles.

It was Zack's turn to roll his eyes. Who knows what part of the blood the vampires actually need to survive? And then the odds of the exact same haemoglobin or plasma or whatever evolving in another species, especially one like the tribbles...

Vulcans and humans could interbreed. Take Spock and what's-her-face from Enterprise... T'Pol and Trip's clone daughter... Elizabeth. That could mean their blood is compatible, and vampires could drink it.

Do I need to point out, I asked sadly, that Vulcans are not a real species...

Not that we know of... but if the point holds true for vampires and humans, why not for vampires and aliens?

'Cause vampires used to be human and aliens, well, aren't...

This conversation lasted the duration of two more laps around the border, no more creepy Romanian leeches appearing out of the shadows. ...I always felt Voyager had more potential then it ever actually had.

Four of Nine was hot though.

The women they stick in unitards always are.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

No, only that they wouldn't find excuses for them to wear those uniforms if they weren't hot.

Voyager was only just starting to get good too when they cancelled it.

There, there- hey, is that a car on the driveway?

We all stopped and cocked our ears. There was defiantly something speeding down the long driveway. Matty, get inside and tell Edward or someone, and stay inside, okay?

But-

What's the rule?

"Pups do not belong in war," he said dully, but what if it's not war, and someone ordered pizza to eat the delivery man? Can I help then?

Damn, dude, don't sound so eager.

And go tell-

Going, All Mighty Alpha. God. Take a pill.

I heard that young man! I called as Embry and I ran towards the manor, where the car was, inevitability, heading. Followed quickly by an, Oh my God! I'm turning into my father.

You only just now- hey! I know that car. It's the Audi. Didn't-

But I never heard what Embry said, my breath baiting as I phased and rushed towards the edge of the tree line. Yes... someone was getting out... could it? Was it? Was everyone right in saying that she'd come back, eventually? Had she come back already? Had she-?

She was dressed like I'd never seen her before, in pink and with make-up and such, but I knew it was her behind the camouflage she'd put on. I rushed forward, and when she saw me, she ran to me, leaping into my arms so quickly I had to spin her though I knew she'd hate it (too corny, she'd say, I just knew) so I didn't topple over, which is saying something about how fast it was. "I couldn't do it," she kept on saying, "I tried, but I couldn't leave you. We got to Seoul, but I just couldn't go through with it, and-" and I think she was crying, and I was holding her tightly and saying how I would never let her out of my sight again, and I couldn't get enough air because I was using it all to tell her how much I loved her and how I was glad she came back and how she could never, ever do that to me again and my heart was going wild as its pieces ripped themselves from wherever they'd sunk in my body and jammed themselves back together not all too well, and even though the snows were coming and there were probably half of the worlds leeches sitting at my door, I was happy 'cause Leah was back and that was all I needed to know...


End file.
